


The Best Laid Plans

by dirkygoodness



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Atlas CEO Rhys, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Jack is a violent little goblin, M/M, Post-Game(s), Rating May Change, Rhys keeps Jack, Trust Jack route, and plugs him into a computer, because he's lonely, i bullshit the ending scene of the game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 20:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirkygoodness/pseuds/dirkygoodness
Summary: Rhys has the Atlas deed. Rhys works on some projects.Rhys has a plan.It's a bad plan.





	The Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> i love this fucking game

He’s selfish and greedy. He _knows_ he is. His little stunt with trusting Handsome Jack was pretty telling, if nothing else had been. There’s a part of that that plays a role in him grabbing the deed to Atlas out of Jack’s destroyed trophy case. A part of him that wants Atlas for what it is - money, power, _potential._ There’s also a part of him that has a plan. It’s a stupid plan. It’s probably going to get him killed. But Rhys is greedy and selfish and attached to a psychotic murderer. He’s got some issues to work out.  
  
It takes longer than he was expecting it to - but he’s got a skewed perspective from working at Helios. Everything at Hyperion happened so _fast_ that there was almost no time to plan it out. Here, on Pandora, things went at a crawling speed. Even more so since he was trying to rebuild a destroyed company name from the ground up. Jack had pretty thoroughly _ruined_ Atlas. So Rhys spends a lot of time alone, one handedly trying to build himself new prosthetics, with nothing but the ambiance of the old Atlas bio-science building to keep him company. Cassius is long gone - Rhys isn’t really sure what he’d have done if he’d have actually still been here.  
  
Money turns out to be the biggest problem; it feels like money is _always_ the problem. Rhys is in constant need of _more_ money, he can’t do anything without _more more more._ He does his best to get it. At first he just starts selling old, useless Atlas tech that he finds around the lab. But he quickly runs out of things he can actually sell without needing to buy them back later and ends up selling weird fruit. It’s nowhere near as lucrative selling the old parts, but it still gets him something - not everyones seen some of the shit Atlas had managed to concoct.  
  
Rhys starts building things as soon as he replaces his arm and ECHO-eye. Everything is much easier when he’s not half blind and without an arm. He could have probably just build Atlas up out of the ground with _only_ this - he’s gotten good enough at half of these things he’d be able to make a decent pay. But he’s got a _plan_ and every day he puts it off is another day something in the back of his head screams at him to _go faster._  
  
Rhys, in the end, decides on a laptop. It’s not autonomous and as long as he keeps it away from all of his other computers, he doesn’t have to worry about infecting the rest of them. Still, it’s not safe - it’s never going to be safe. Not as long as he follows through with his plan. Then again, everything in Rhys’ life at this point wasn’t safe.  
  
The hardest part of his plan turns out to be figuring out how to get the data from his old ECHO-eye onto the laptop. It’s not like he can just plug it into the computer - Rhys doesn’t think they make adapters for it. It takes him a week to figure out how to do it - he’s got his old eye hooked up like a shotty car battery in a mechanic’s shop. He doesn’t know how he keeps fuses from blowing. He doesn’t turn it on.  
  
He doesn’t turn it on because Loader Bot kidnaps him and he has to once again deal with the Traveler Vault. He doesn’t think they’ll beat it - honestly the only reason he keeps a straight face is because he wants to keep Gortys calm and on task. When they _do_ end up beating it, Rhys is stunned and confused as to exactly how, but he’ll take what he can get. Everyone makes it out (Sasha almost doesn’t and honestly it was scary as fuck) and they go in for the loot. Rhys and Fiona teleport. Because of course they do, it’s the teleporting Vault, he should have expected it.  
  
The loot is pretty good - it’ll be sure to keep him payed for a _long_ time. They come out the same way they went in - touching some weird box. Then they go their separate ways and Rhys remembers his plan and gets back to the bio-science lab as fast as he can manage it. He still doesn’t turn the laptop on. He doesn’t initiate the transfer. Because he _has everything_ now. He has money, he has vault loot, he’s set - he doesn’t _need_ to go through with the plan.  
  
It’s been a month since he got back. Every time he passes the laptop the back of his neck itches. He’s been ignoring it. He doesn’t _need_ to turn it on. He should throw it out. Rhys sits down in his chair and ignores it again. He boots up his computer silently, and is met with an Atlas background - kind of self serving, really, but at the time it’d made him feel professional and he doesn’t have the motivation to change it. He tries to focus on his work, his projects, really, he does. But it’s like something’s _begging_ him to turn around. _Theplantheplantheplan._  
  
Rhys edits two documents and one string of code in an hour. He can’t seem to manage more than that today, everything feels too much and too little at the same time. An awful mix of overstimulation and boredom. Rhys drops his head to his hands with a defeated sigh. He’s not going to get any work done today. He doesn’t _want_ to. He _wants_ to finish his plan. His plan is a horrible idea. It’ll probably get him killed. Everything he’s built is going to be destroyed if it goes wrong and the chances of it going wrong are about a hundred to one.  
  
Rhys looks over his shoulder at the laptop. It’s still set up, still ready to go - there’s a thin layer of dust covering the keys, the screen. It’s a bad idea. He should throw it out.  
  
Rhys stands up and moves to the chair in front of the laptop. He slowly lowers himself down into the chair.  
  
Rhys is greedy. Rhys is selfish. Rhys turns the laptop on.

  
  
The first thing he notices is that nothing happens. There’s no sudden, maniacal laughter in his ears, there’s no blue screen or error message. The laptop just boots up and opens on the login screen. He puts in the password, and it goes to the desktop with no problems. Nothing happens. Rhys’ stomach sinks to his feet because he must have fucked something up. He might not have hooked it up properly. He might have broken the old ECHO-eye - crushed or cracked it in his pocket and now his plan is over and Rhys feels _stupid ---_  
  
There’s a surge in power seconds later, and it’s the second thing Rhys notices. Rhys can’t see it with his human eye - only notices it because he turns his ECHO-eye on, trying to figure out what he did wrong. The surge in power bubbles up from the old eye implant, and shoots out like a crack of lightning across the wires Rhys’ used to hook it up to the laptop. Rhys’ tenses and holds his breath as the surge reaches the laptop. The screen glitches out, then it goes black, and Rhys doesn’t move for a long minute.

Nothing happens. The computer doesn’t turn back on. Rhys thinks, for one long, terrified moment, that the infodump was too much for the old laptop and has fried it’s circuits. That the program was too much and can’t be run on anything smaller than a full temporal lobe implant.

But then Rhys remembers it was stored in a shitty, dated _USB_ for at least a year without harm, so that’s not the problem. Rhys bites his bottom lip in thought for a moment before reaching out - with his _flesh hand,_ he not rising _anything_ \- and turning the computer on again. As it boots up _this_ time, Rhys already can spot the differences. The first few seconds are an error screen, followed by a glitching login screen - which logs itself in in three seconds. Then the desktop opens and the background is the Hyperion logo and Rhys’ breath catches in his throat.  
  
The screen flickers blue, once, twice, three times before it fully opens and then Rhys can see Handsome Jack’s face and he _knows_ he shouldn’t have done this but he can’t help the rising surge of satisfied pride that flushes him. Jack looks around, confused, his mouth hanging open on unspoken questions. Then the webcam flickers to life, the blue - then yellow, Jack turned the light _yellow -_  light indicating it’s on bright and damming. Jack’s eyes snap forwards as he an _see_ Rhys now.

“What the fuck.” Are the first words out of Jacks mouth. Rhys physically recoils from the sound - torn between _itworkeditworkedohmygod_ and _ohgodhe’sbackwhathaveIdone._

“You little _shit._ ” Are the next words he says, snarled and _oh so_ angry. Rhys deserves it - but he doesn’t he knows he does it, but he _does_ because he killed thousands of people on Helios. “Mistake number one, Rhysie - you let me live.”  
  
Rhys should be scared. He’s not. Jack’s in a laptop and he has no connection to Rhys’ cybernetics, he can’t kill him. Instead he’s… _relieved._ His plan worked, Jack’s back. Rhys sags heavily into his chair and lets out an exhausted sigh. Jack’s face twists in annoyance.  
  
“What, am I boring you?”  
  
“I just spent a year trying to bring you back, Jack. A ‘thank you’ would be appreciated,” Rhys says before he can stop himself, and half of him flinches with deeply conditioned fear. Rhys isn’t scared of Jack _right now_ but Jack is a _very_ scary man, and everything else that’d happened _does_ scare him. Jack lifts an eyebrow.

“As much as I love being back, cupcake, how stupid do you gotta be do actually do it?” Jack’s face flickers for a moment before it’s smaller, like he’s stepped back. “I tried to kill you. Twice. No - if you count the exoskeleton it’s three times. Why the fuck wouldn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”  
  
_Sentiment,_ Rhys’ mind helpfully supplies him. _Loneliness._ Rhys _missed_ Jack, it’s as simple as that. (It’s not.) He’d thought they’d become friends. He was ready to rule Hyperion with Jack and do what was necessary to do it. He wasn’t ready to kill himself so Jack could use him as a meat suit. He wasn’t super keen on the whole Jack-corpse-army idea, either, but that one as at least less _harmful_ to Rhys’ own wellbeing. Rhys shrugs.

“Come on, Rhys, you can do better than that. Why the hell didn’t you kill me.” Jack’s tone shifts to one of more confusion, inquisition, opposed to downright murderous. Something about the inflection makes Rhys want to tell him.

“Killing friends isn’t really on my list of things to do.” Rhys tells him, feeling guilty even as he says it. Because he really does still consider Jack a friend, even after he’d tried to kill him. Multiple times. Rhys wasn’t the best candidate for morally sound judgement. He worked for Hyperion for most of his life, for fucks sake.

“Seriously, kid,” Jack says, bewilderment clear in his voice. “You still think I’m your _friend?_ After that little stunt you pulled, backing out of our deal like that? Yeah, no. That ain’t happening.”

“You tried to kill me, Jack.” Rhys pinches the bridge of his nose, taking a long, steadying breath. “You wanted to scoop out my skeletal structure and implant yourself in my body. I was ready to do a _lot_ of bad shit for you. It kind of went hand in hand with agreeing to be your partner. But you tried to use my body as a meat suit. How did you think I’d react? Did you honestly think I’d just go, ‘Oh, yes, Mr. Handsome Jack, sir. _Please_ use me as your personal body suit. I’d _love_ to die just so you could have me be part of your corpse army.’” Rhys glares heatedly at Jack. Jack purses his lips, staring at Rhys for a long moment, before shrugging.

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” Jack laughs, and Rhys rolls his eyes. “Maybe I _did_ go a little over the top. Can you blame me? I was excited!” Rhys levels Jack with a cold stare.

“You tried to kill me because you were _excited_.” Rhys deadpans, and Jack nods enthusiastically. Rhys rubs a hand down his face with an exasperated groan. “Of course you did.”  Rhys stands up, stretching a little. Jack watches him, Rhys can see through the corner of his eye. Just as Rhys moves to leave - he needs to sleep - Jack shouts and drags his attention back.

“Uh-uh, where do you think you’re going?”

“I need to sleep.” Rhys tells him, quietly, and drops a hand to his hip. Jack frowns.

“I only just got here and you’re going to bed? We’ve still got a _lot_ to talk about, Rhysie.”

“Mhm, sure. After I’ve had a nights rest,” Rhys is already turning and walking out of the room as he says it, and he can hear Jack yelling at him as he makes his way to his makeshift bedroom.


End file.
